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In most of the swing states, registrations are up compared to 2020. Will this mean there will be more voters this year? Probably, since when people register to vote just before an election, they are very likely to vote. Also, this time, COVID-19 is not stalking the land, making it easier to vote. The conventional wisdom has always been that high-turnout elections help the Democrats, but there is evidence that there are plenty of marginal Trump voters out there. If they decide to participate this time, it could help the Republicans. So, who knows which party high-turnout helps more?
To give one example, North Carolina has 500,000 more registered voters now than it had in 2020, when Donald Trump won the state by 74,000 votes. In Michigan, there are 350,000 more voters now than in Oct. 2020. Biden won that state by 150,000 votes. In Nevada, there are 260,000 more registered voters now than in 2020. In 2020, Biden won the Silver State by 33,600 votes. In August 2024 alone, 125,000 new voters registered in Arizona.
The surge in registrations is due to several factors. One of them is that since the 2022 election cycle, 8 million 16- and 17-year olds have turned 18 and are thus eligible to register. Another one is the ferocity of this year's presidential election, which may motivate some eligible but previously unregistered citizens to go register.
Online sites that help people register are seeing more traffic than in the past. Sometimes that is in response to some external event. For example, vote.gov was getting 30,000 visitors a day until Taylor Swift dropped her bombshell. In the next 24 hours, the site had 406,000 visitors. We don't think that was a coincidence. Sept. 17 is National Voter Registration Day. On that day, another site, the similarly named vote.org, broke its record and registered 150,000 new voters, of which 16% were from the seven swing states.
One swing state is lagging, though: Pennsylvania. There, 150,000 fewer people are registered now than were on Election Day 2020. But people can still register.
If you want to know the last date you can register in person, online, or by mail, these interactive maps show the deadlines for every state. In some states, the deadline is as early as Oct. 4. In 25 others, you can register when you show up on Election Day. Three swing states allow registration on Election Day: Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. These dates are important to the campaigns. Up until the deadline, the focus is registering new voters. After the deadline, the focus is getting registered voters to vote in-person or by mail. Of course, in states where you can register and vote at the same time, the focus is on both registering and voting up until Nov. 5.
A name you are going to see a lot here and elsewhere until Nov. 5 is Michael McDonald. No, not the musician who was part of The Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan. The professor of political science at the University of Florida whose research speciality is elections, especially turnout and early voting. Every political reporter in the country is probably going to check in with him regularly for the next 5 weeks to see how things are going compared to past cycles. He loves being in the media, so he is happy to oblige. He has also been a consultant to various pollsters. (V)